New notebook so slow it's unusable

[KimM12]

  HP Envy purchsed last Saturday and is so slow I can't even use it.  The internet is fine. It's not that. No apps running the background.  It takes over 5 minutes just to open a  program. Can someone offer some advice or insight? Thanks. 

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

It is not real popular here but I try to speak the truth. Here are the specs of your laptop:

specs

Let's break this down. 

Intel® Celeron® N3060 (1.6 GHz, up to 2.48 GHz, 2 MB cache, 2 cores)

These are benchmarks showing your processor's performance as against a low-end i3 from 3 generations back...about the least powerful thing I would recommend someone buy. As you can see your processor is about maybe 55-60% as fast as the slowest thing needed to run Windows 10 very well. 

Memory, standard

4 GB DDR3L-1600 SDRAM (1 x 4 GB)

4 gigs of RAM is just barely enough

Hard drive

1 TB 5400 rpm SATA

This is a slow hard drive...about the slowest type of storage offered on curent computers. 

So you have a perfect storm of sub-par hardware cobbled together to offer a cheap laptop. From the outside it is shiny and new, but on the inside it's all struggling to keep up with the demands of current computing. 

What can you do? We can speak of upgrades but those are costly and not easy to do. We can turn off all the visual effects in Windows to keep the OS from consuming processor cycles and we can turn off all stuff that runs automatically in the background, although you say there aren't any of those I bet we can find some processes that can be turned off. 

Bottom line, if you still have the right to return it, do so and add some more money in to purchase a laptop with at least an Intel Core i3 processor and 8 gigs of RAM. And a "solid state drive" if budget permits. 

If this is "the Answer" please click "Accept as Solution" to help others find it. 

[KimM12]

 Thank you for reply. It did some updates and for the moment being, seems to be working fairly better. This notebook will be used mainly for browsing websites. Not for gaming, movies, etc.  

[Huffer]

Movies should be OK. Gaming is out of the question. Just keep the startup routine very lean and you might want to consider turning off Aero and the eye candy from Windows 10:

http://www.softwareok.com/?seite=faq-Windows-10&faq=160

Essentially makes the OS look like Windows 2000, not very exciting but leaner and faster. 

[KimM12]

 Taking notes. I'll see how it goes and may or may not end up returning it. Thanks again!

[Huffer]

You are going to be "with" this thing a long time. It can be 2 or 3 years of struggling to make it work or being happy with your computer. 

[KimM12]

 I know. I think I'll probably return it. It's back to being unusable again for basic internet browsing.  I mean I can't even try to trouble shoot with it because it's so slow.